MINNEAPOLIS — If a team at the top of the WNBA standings somehow acquired a player of Napheesa Collier’s caliber midseason — without giving up its first-year phenom, a few trusty veterans or a haul of future draft picks — it would likely be viewed as one of the league’s biggest blockbuster trades.

Instead, that improbable boost is reality for the league-leading Lynx and their returning star.

Collier, the two-time MVP runner-up, was designated as “probable” on the team injury report for the first time this season ahead of the Lynx’s game on the road against Seattle on Wednesday at 2 p.m. — their final game before the All-Star break from July 23-27.

Collier, who had surgery on both ankles this offseason, returned to full team practice on July 1, and spent the next three weeks ramping back up to game action.

The “probable” tag typically indicates a 75% chance to appear in the next day’s game. While that doesn’t guarantee Collier to play, it does put her close to her debut, which could come Wednesday or when the Lynx return from All-Star weekend playing host to Toronto on July 28.

The Lynx (21-6) rose to the top of the WNBA standings without Collier, though as the season has flown by, more recent matchups have highlighted the importance of their 2024 Defensive Player of the Year.

Collier announced in January that her two injured ankles — she sprained her right ankle in August, then injured her left as the Lynx were knocked out of the playoffs in September — would both require surgery. She sat out the second season of the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league she co-founded, and about half of the WNBA season.

Now, Collier is close to returning to a Lynx team that held steady in her absence, but is eager to welcome back one of the league’s best and most versatile players.

“The goal coming into every season is to win a championship,” Collier said July 1. “I feel like we have the pieces to do that.”

The Lynx’s strong start softened the initial sting of uncertainty that swirled around the team this offseason. The timeline of Collier’s return was unknown, and the team bid farewell to much of last year’s rotation in free agency.

Collier, vice president of the WNBA’s players association, spent the offseason helping negotiate the league’s new collective bargaining agreement.

The increased salary cap in the deal helped several of last year’s Lynx players score large contracts on new teams.

“It’s bittersweet,” Collier said during the preseason. “But I’m just really happy ... for them to be paid.”

There were questions about how the Lynx would fare to start the season without Collier, who re-signed on a one-year supermax deal worth $1.4 million. She had averaged 22.9 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game in 2025. Coach Cheryl Reeve said the team would have to make up for Collier’s absence “collectively.”

The Lynx, largely, did just that.

Point guard Olivia Miles, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA draft, was named an All-Star Game starter and has looked like one of the best players in the league.

Guards Courtney Williams and Kayla McBride have been reliable returners and leaders. Veteran free-agent signings Natasha Howard and Nia Coffey, who started at power forward in place of Collier, held down the frontcourt.

But in July, Reeve said: “It’s still Phee’s team. There’s not anybody that walks in the gym that doesn’t know that it’s still Phee’s team. Courtney and [McBride] are very happy to declare that it’s Phee’s team.”

Collier said the past few weeks have been about gaining confidence and shaking off the rust while meshing with a new group. Miles, even back in May, expressed her excitement to send passes to Collier, who she said she heard has “the best hands of them all.”

“[There’s] players that I haven’t played with before, so just naturally there’s that learning curve,” Collier said. “I think thankfully all of our players are such — as Cheryl always recruits here — team players, not ‘I’ players, and so naturally, they’re always easy to play with.”

In the preseason, the Lynx released a statement targeting early June for Collier’s return to “on-court activities.”

As the first month of the regular season slipped by, Collier was spotted popping up shots in sneakers at the end of pregame shootarounds. Her name started creeping up the practice courts’ shot tracker.

“I want to be out there celebrating with them,” Collier said. Reeve called Collier the “queen of FOMO [Fear of Missing Out].”

But Reeve also said she told the Lynx star the team didn’t want her to rush back.

Ankles can be tricky, and Collier, 29, has years of basketball ahead of her. Reeve regretted how fast Collier returned to the court after giving birth to her daughter in 2022, in order to play a few final games with the retiring Sylvia Fowles.

“If we both could redo that, we would not have done that,” Reeve said early in the season. “We’re going to make sure that we’re going to try to keep her from herself and do the right things for her, for her future.”

Though admittedly eager to get back on the court, Collier said, “Sitting out kind of gives you a bird’s-eye view. You get to see stuff that you don’t necessarily see when you’re in practice. [I’m] just trying to use my voice that way.”

By the first time “out” wasn’t the designation next to Collier’s name on a pregame injury report, Reeve had compared the Lynx to a racer who burst out of the gates quickly, but then was trying to make it to the finish line strong — in their case, All-Star weekend.

Minutes piled up. Matchups got tougher. Collier’s addition would be a welcome midseason boost.

Since Collier’s last appearance — all but the final 21.8 seconds of the playoff matchup in which she injured her left ankle on Sept. 26 in Phoenix — the WNBA has inarguably changed.

Officiating, which Collier and other players and coaches called out last season, has gotten tighter. Players’ paydays have increased, which changed the makeup of several teams, including the Lynx.

But Collier’s team is where she left them — vying for a spot at the top of the WNBA, and hopeful its star’s return can help lift it to a fifth title.

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